#52 Cynicism

At the start of any Expat Aid Worker’s career will come a moment, perhaps during a volunteer posting or a field internship, when the kindly, senior and experienced Expatriate Aid Worker who has become their guide and patron, will take them quietly aside, point to a colleague lurking behind a cigarette at the edge of the compound, and say gently,

“Whatever you do in this industry, don’t end up like him.”

‘Him’ is a burned-out, cynical long-termer with a red veiny nose and an accent that probably started off European but is now a pastiche of mid-Atlantic drawl and Afrikaans clip, seasoned with odd phrases of Kiswahili and Tok Pisin. He has a scowl for a smile and a limp he picked up when his Buffalo had to do a pancake landing on some mud-soaked Southern Sudanese airstrip in ’96.

The fledgling EAW will nod, wide-eyed, at this wisdom, and will be filled with an immediate and burning passion to be JUST like the grizzled long-termer. This will never dissipate.

In the pecking order of Field Cred, nothing says ‘I’ve been through the crapper’ to an EAW like cynicism. The more bitter the EAW’s tirades about things that ordinarily seem harmless, the harder they have clearly lived, and the more extreme their experiences have obviously been. It stands as a proxy for just how badass the EAW truly is.

The journeyman EAW, of course, will quickly develop cynicism as a way of gaining social currency with peers and those he or she aspires to be counted among. Easy first steps include cynicism about host governments, donor agencies, and head office administration. Cynicism about program quality, impact and UN coordination meetings quickly follows.

The more experienced EAW, of course, will be cynical about such trite cynicism. She or he has developed cynicism to a higher plane and is cynical about the humanitarian imperative (there is only selfish action); little grandmothers who donate to charity (tax breaks); and recipient communities (eviscerating the myth of the noble savage with bitter joy).

Our grizzled long-termer is way past this. He’s seen so much and lived so hard, he no longer believes that there’s any good in the human spirit. He’s long since stopped trying to justify his actions as anything other than self-serving, but won’t leave the industry because he knows nothing else, and it’s cost him three marriages, and anyway, relief ops are kind of fun. He doesn’t bother expressing cynicism about anything any more, he’s that hardcore. In meetings he listens to impassioned pleas for improving programs and contributes only Gallic snorts. At parties he loiters in corners behind clouds of smoke from local cigarettes and the only flicker of interest in his grey eyes shows when some fresh EAW-ette floats past in search of the bar.

The fledgling EAW has an instant crush, and will subsequently take every broken, dead-end, soul-crushing posting in every war-torn, cholera-ridden, scum-infested backwater she or he can find in an effort to become as cynical, jaded, snarky and grizzled as the long-termer, and so claw their way to the top of the Field Cred pile.

Until one day, two marriages down, with just the first inkling of a chronic sciatic nerve problem from too much time off-road in Toyota Land Cruisers, the EAW will spot some wide-eyed intern fresh off the UNHAS flight. The EAW will take them aside and point to the EAW’s old mentor who is currently rifling through a crate of infants’ food rations, destined for a therapeutic feeding centre, because he forgot his lunch. Then the EAW will warn the intern in earnest,

Like this:

Related

Hah! I speak with odd smatterings of kiswahili and tok pisin phrases. That’s funny. So does my brother (obviously) but he’s actually worked in Sudan, though he never rode a buffalo there. I’ll have to tell him he missed out.

Hilarious Venn Diagram by the way. Lets see, which part of that shoe fits me…

Looking for something?

What our fans are saying

"The Stuff Expat Aid Workers Like blog is like having a beer with a jaundiced aid worker after a crap day. It’s all cynicism and self-loathing (and some ferocious cartoons), with the commitment (one hopes) taken for granted...." Duncan Green, Oxfam UK, From Poverty to Power Blog

"I'm a local, and I just wanted to say thank you SO MUCH for your blog. Often when working with expats I get a sense of humour failure. Why do they talk about the toilet so much (especially because Cape Town isn't exactly the bush - you can eat quite safely) and wear such a strange combination of local clothes? Why do they ignore advice about safety? Why do they lecture me on the history of my own country? And then I read your blog. And it's all so true!" H